These Few Brave Souls

by Rodney Manchester

  Inside the ugly and obviously government owned building, he found the ICE liaison to the San Diego Police Department. After some minutes of small talk, Jesus was taken into a file room that was clearly too small for the massive amount of paperwork it held.

  Thirty-five minutes and one paper cut (why do they sting so badly?) later, they found the file on Ramon Juarez. "Surprise surprise," he mumbled as he sucked on his cut finger

  "What?" replied Andrew Harris, the ICE liaison.

  "Nothing really. We just had him pegged as Mexican. It seems he's from Comas, Peru."

  "Where the fuck is that?" Harris asked.

  "Beats me," replied Jesus. "But I'm gonna find out."

  Thirty-five minutes later when he met his partner at the morgue, he learned that he was too late. Ramon Juarez had caught Varig Airlines, Flight 845 from Los Angeles, bound for Lima Peru, at 12:45 this afternoon.

  Onizuka Air Force Base

  Sunnyvale, California

  Andrew Howard felt alive as never before. A science fiction fan, he felt as if he were living a dream. He was sitting at a console monitoring a real live UFO with some of the most expensive and sophisticated equipment made by the hand of man.

  He had come on duty that morning with no inkling of what was to come. Just another day in Paradise, or that's how the joke went. Then the warning about a new satellite. Everyone scrambled about, worrying about what it might be, but he knew. He knew right from the start that it was a UFO. Let them bury THIS incident as swamp gas!

  Andy held the headphones, or 'cans' as they are affectionately called by those who wear them all day, tight to his ears. He was concentrating on listening for any electronic emission from the UFO. When it came, he was initially disgusted that the screech of digital audio had found its way into his domain. Some careful checking changed his mind quickly and his heart leapt at the ramifications. HE had heard it first!

  "Captain," he screamed. "Captain, over here."

  Captain Hansen jerked his head at the high pitched wail that was calling his name. Howard seemed to be the source. He had had a gleam in his eye since this incident began. Maybe he had found something.

  Hansen wound his way to Howard's console with measured steps that he had practiced many many times. He had designed the stride to impart confidence without undo haste. Everything Captain Thomas Hansen did was carefully planned to present the correct command image. He was the man in charge and let no one dispute it.

  Being in charge of civilians, from a military standpoint, was less than ideal. Hansen had aspirations of a command heavy future that would not come to fruition by leading 'civies'. Still, if he did poorly here, leading men in a real situation would never happen.

  Hansen stopped behind Howard and spoke in his best command voice. "Yes Howard, what is it?"

  Andy's normal voice had increased its pitch by at least one octave in his excitement. "I found it. All my antennas are pointing right at it and I was the one who found it!"

  "Damn it man, found what?" Hansen's patience had about worn thin today. First this crazy alert and then the rumors spreading about aliens in the sky and now this little dweeb shrieking about finding 'it'.

  "At twenty-eight point four centimeters I found a digital burst. Two tones, ones and zeros. About 400K baud."

  "Save it?"

  Andy turned to look at the pompous fool behind him. "Of course."

  Hansen turned and marched to Major Jensen's desk. Jensen, a football type from the Air Force Academy, looked up at Hansen's approach. "Yes."

  "Major, one of my technicians caught something."

  "I hope it isn't serious." Jensen knew exactly what Hansen meant, but he just couldn't resist having a little fun with this starchy SOB.

  "No sir," Hansen stammered. "That's not what I meant, sir. Andrew Howard intercepted a radio transmission from the satellite."

  "Well, why didn't you say so?" Major Jensen reached for his telephone.

  Stanford University

  Palo Alto, California

  Professor Christopher Jorgenson sat at his desk and stared unseeing at the light green painted wall. It was a relaxing color, one that he had chosen for his office with just this purpose in mind. A short, slight man of brown hair and eyes, he was what came to mind when "computer nerd' was mentioned. There were a great many ways in which that designation did not apply that one noticed after a time. He had no pocket protector and he had 20/20 vision, so glasses, with or without black tape, were not needed.

  Yet appearances can be deceiving. Christopher Jorgenson was not a wimp. He jogged three times a week and played racket ball as much as his schedule allowed. He was not an expert in self-defense, but he had taken Karate for several years as a teenager when his larger peers had mistaken him for an easy mark. He kept in practice at his local Dojo, but was no longer in formal classes.

  His concentration was almost scary at times. He would center his thoughts in one direction and be oblivious to events around him. Such was the case as the third or fourth ring of his telephone finally garnered his attention. Ten minutes later, he was southbound on Highway one oh one, headed for one of the few US Air Force bases in the world without a need for aircraft. Onizuka Air Force Base had only massive antenna as its reason for being.

  A short time later pandemonium broke loose at the 2nd Satellite Tracking Center as radar picked up several smaller objects separating from the big one, now in geosynchronous orbit. Torrents of data were being transferred by radio as they disappeared over the horizon. They appeared to be slowing their orbital velocity, as if to enter the atmosphere.

  CHAPTER 5

  HMS Rooke

  Gibralter

  HMS Rooke is the “Stone Frigate” and shore establishment of the Royal Navy at Gibraltar. The “Rock of Gibraltar” is on one side of the narrow opening where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. Historically a choke point of maritime commerce and war, Gibraltar has been a thorn in the side of any navy foolish enough to challenge the Royal Navy’s dominance of this critical waterway.

  The communications center inside the Royal Navy compound hosts a plethora of communication personnel and their associated missions. One critical mission was manned 24/7 and involved eavesdropping on non-allied naval communications. Truth be told, they listened to whomever was within range. And, with NATO networked communications, that range was quite large.

  USS Laboon, DDG 58, a Destroyer of the US Navy was within 60 kilometers of Gibraltar when they hailed the USS Enterprise on a standard NATO communication channel. The Enterprise was sailing along the Spanish coast between Palma and Barcelona when they were called by the Carrier Group escort vessel.

  “Home Plate, Home Plate, this is Second Base, repeat Second Base, we show a bogey, distance of 154 kilometers bearing two six five degrees heading one three one true, speed more than four thousand knots with an altitude of angels 90 plus. Do you copy home plate, over?”

  “Second base, Home Plate, we have the bogey on the repeater. What the hell is it, a meteor, over?

  “Beats me Home Plate, but it’s not headed at us. Looks to be on a ballistic flight path and headed toward Morocco, over.”

  The anomaly was soon over the Taza region of Morocco, headed southeast toward the Sahara Desert, deep within the “Region De L Oriental”. Inhospitable and sparsely populated, this was the only radar contact of note made with the fleeting object. The airport tower at Tangier international picked it up but without a transponder return, only the contact was logged, not the specifics of flight.

  Mankind’s first line of sight contact with an extraterrestrial aircraft was logged as a meteor. By the time they recognized it for what it was, more than 25,000 lives would be lost.

  Jauja, Peru

  Jose Estevez was a farmer. He was also a ham radio operator. He had first become interested in radio as a teenager, but there was nowhere to go to learn about such things and his father had felt that it was a waste of time. He would grow up to be a farmer like his father and his grandf
ather and his great grandfather before him. But Jose was different. He accepted fate and became a farmer, but his imagination had been whetted and he gobbled up any information he could find about electricity and especially electronics. He had gradually become knowledgeable in the science of electrons and had built his own radio when money for a store bought unit was unavailable. He had taken and passed his nation's test for electronic knowledge and received an Amateur Radio License.

  The very first radio Jose built worked only with Morse Code, but he had gradually improved his skills and had designed and built a simple crystal controlled single sideband transceiver. Over the years he had developed long distance friendships through the radio. Friendships that were based on common interests, but with widely different backgrounds. Farmers talked with doctors who talked with US Senators who talked with truck drivers who talked with grade school children. Jose had spent hours in conversation with all of them at one time or another. His best radio friend was a farmer outside Woodland, California.

  Brent Paine, amateur call WB6RBA, had an eighty acre farm on Yolo County Road 29A. He heard his friend Jose call him on 14.210 MHZ in the twenty meter band.

  "WB6RBA, WB6RBA, Whiskey Bravo Six Romeo Bravo Alpha this is OA2KWG, OA2KWG, Oscar Alpha Two Kilo Whiskey Golf standing by."

  Brent leaned forward and spoke into his microphone "OA2KWG, OA2KWG, OA2KWG this is WB6RBA." His radio was equipped with a feature called VOX which automatically transmitted when the microphone picked up sound other than from the speaker.

  "Hello Brent," came the familiar accented voice of Jose. "How are you today? It is a beautiful evening here, but it has been humid all day. I think it is too hot to sleep so I turned on the rig and gave you a call."

  Jose and Brent had spoken to each other a great many times. They had developed an informal schedule over the years. Once each week on Tuesday evening, after the day’s work was complete, they would listen or call for each other on 14.210 MHZ. Sometimes the atmospheric conditions favored their friendship and they made contact. Tonight was such a night.

  One hundred twenty miles southwest of Woodland, in San Jose, California, Steve Martinez sat listening to the conversation over the radio. He was a member of a local amateur radio club that had a particular interest in talking to other amateur radio operators a long distance away, called DXing. Steve turned to his keyboard and, through another radio, connected his computer to a DX radio forum that listed current long distance contacts as they occurred. This allowed other hams to tune in and maybe talk to the far away station. Stations in Peru were not common and this would be a good contact.

  After several minutes, there were more than thirty amateur stations listening to Brent and Jose's conversation when Jose came over the air sounding excited and his accent became very difficult to follow.

  "Brent, there is something strange happening. There is a heavy green mist outside. It is very quiet, like everything is covered with a blanket. Stand by a moment while I go check."

  About a minute passed and Jose was back coughing badly and trying to talk. "Brent, I cannot breathe. My chest aches and I'm getting dizzy. A bright star ...," his voice faded into the background.

  Brent sat in front of his radio listening to his longtime friend hack out the words, then he heard only the hiss of radio static. He called into the microphone "OA2KWG, OA2KWG, OA2KWG, do you read me." He paused a moment and tried again and again.

  San Jose, California

  John Harvey was a 55 year old ham radio operator and a 10th grade science teacher. He was doing a lesson on amateur radio in his class the next day and had been monitoring the forum that had announced the Peruvian station. He thought it would make a great addition to his lesson, so he had digitally recorded the conversation. John was puzzled at the ending, so he called his son who worked for the news department of a San Francisco radio station. Ten minutes later, after trying unsuccessfully to make contact, first with Lima, Peru, then with any other city close by, the story went out over the Wire Services.

  High above the Taklimakan Desert

  Western China

  The Taklimakan Desert basin is nearly 700 miles long and 300 miles wide. It is framed by two branches of the ancient Silk Road, one to the north, the other to the south, leaving this barren desert of blowing sand dunes alone. Indeed, the name itself translates from ancient Arabic as “to leave alone, abandon”.

  Seven craft glided down into the rolling sand dunes and landed.

  Roaming bands of nomadic tribesman were the only victims of the earlier green gas and in this, one of the coldest and driest deserts and most inhospitable places on the face of the earth, there was no one to notice…or even care. And in the distant capitals of the western powers, this landing site wasn’t even noticed.

  Bouarfa, Morocco

  Thirty kilometers northwest of the small Saharan high desert community of Bouarfa, a craft began to fly a grid pattern. In ever larger swaths, a high delta winged silver aircraft wove a straight line reversing path which the rug craftsmen about to die would appreciate. Laser straight, precisely aligned, the back and forth flight path delivered maximum concentration of a fine green mist that gently wafted to the ground, covering everything.

  The village of Bouarfa, whose reason for being was the intersection of National highways Ten and Seventeen and a garrison for the check points on the road to nearby Algeria, was no exception. The range of hills to the northwest wasn’t a barrier as much as a natural object that was easily overcome. Within 30 minutes everything within the 2000 square kilometer grid, including the 25,000 human lives in the village, was dead.

  The craft, seemingly finished with its crop dusting task, widened the flying pattern and began to patrol the perimeter of its new home. It was joined by two others as the skies, otherwise devoid of air traffic, suddenly got busy. On the first northwestern leg one of the craft came into range of the air traffic controller at Fes-Saïss Airport. The controllers on duty grew increasingly anxious as the patrolling craft ignored the growing urgency in the radio calls. When the craft finally left the radar screen, it was replaced by another, and yet another. Finally a call was made to Force Aérienne Royale Marocaine, the Moroccan Royal Air Force.

  Moulay Ali Cherif Airport

  Errachidia, Morocco

  Sous-lieutenant Mohammed Aliegiah arose that morning, knelt in prayer to Allah, and prepared to do his duty. His duty today was to fly in protection of Morocco. His mission was to fly his Britten-Norman Defender, a twin engine high wing observation aircraft from Errachidia to Bouarfa and see what was causing so much anxiety in Fes.

  The twin engine aircraft leapt into the sky easily from runway 31 as the lightweight plane turned to the right and headed on a course of 080 toward his objective. The two Rolls-Royce Allison 250-B17F turboprop engines propelled the plane forward at a cruising speed of 150 knots, making for a short journey East.

  Lieutenant Aligiah flew over Bouarfa and all seemed normal. He was circling at 4,000 meters and was in radio contact with his commander, Captain Azziz when the other aircraft approached. His top speed of 180 knots just wasn’t enough. Not even close. As the aircraft drew ever closer, Mohammed turned away, avoiding contact, at first.

  “Captain, I see the aircraft. It is unlike anything I have seen before, more like a high speed experimental airplane. Silver in color, short, small wing with winglets upturned at the end. It is very fast. It just flew by and is turning around.”

  A radically tight turn brought them together, the Defender crumpled as the wings simply folded up and the fuselage split in two.

  Lieutenant Aligiah’s parachute deployed and he slowly swung at the end of the riser lines and drifted northeast. As he neared the ground he saw that he would not clear the ridge line and he prepared for impact.

  Just as he touched the ground, he bent his knees and rolled into the direction the breeze was taking him. Mohammed quickly stood and removed his parachute harness and helmet. He gathered the parachute and tether lines together and buried them
under nearby rocks. He then grabbed his emergency radio and turned it on. After several minutes spent calling for help, he realized that he was only a few minutes from civilization by aircraft, but hours away by foot. He took his compass out of his survival kit and took a bearing toward Bouafra and headed southeast for the short walk to town. It should be less than 5 kilometers he thought.

  The resulting activity by the Force Aérienne Royale Marocaine was noted with interest across the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea at nearby Gibraltar.

  Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie

  Rabat, Morocco

  The Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie is attached to the Royal Moroccan Army and is headquartered in Rabat. They report through the Ministry of the Interior, but associate closely with their Army counterparts.

  The phone rang in Colonel Hassan’s office as he was reviewing a report from the Algerian border city of Figuig regarding the mysterious absence of officers supposed to be manning a check point on National Highway 17. He absently reached for the phone. “Colonel Hassan here,” he said.

  Colonel Hassan was a distant relative of Hassan II, King of Morocco, and very aware of that fact. He guarded his reputation with zeal and vigor.

  “Colonel, this is Captain Azziz of the Air Force. We had reports of unidentified aircraft over the Oriental Region so I sent an observation plane to check on this…we just lost radio contact with the plane,” Azziz said.

  “And what do you expect me to do about it?” he replied, almost harshly.

  And then he recalled the document in front of him. “Ah, we have also encountered some missing police on check points between Bouafra and Faguig. I will contact our Bouafra garrison and let you know what I find.”

  But when he couldn’t raise the Bouafra garrison he called Général de Brigade Bennani and sounded the general alarm. The resulting radio chatter was also overheard just to the north, across the Strait of Gibraltar, inside the HMS Rooke communication building.